Closing the Rift
by Ezmi
Summary: TORCHWOOD. It's been a long 14 months. Now the Torchwood Three team has been reunited. Given a chance to close the rift between her and her former coworkers, what will Tosh choose? TorchwoodStargate Atlantis crossover.
1. Prologue

OK, so I've got two disclaimers to make before I start this: the major one is I'm American, so any words I use that are unfamiliar in their meaning or usage I apologize for in advance, please feel free to let me know and I will correct them.

The other is that I want to explain that while my favorite character is Ianto, I knew I was going to like Tosh as well pretty much from minute one, but it wasn't until I saw "Greeks Bearing Gifts" that it exploded into, well, this.

This fic is an AU crossover between Torchwood and Stargate Atlantis with emphasis mostly on the Torchwood part. The AU part applies to Atlantis in that in this universe it was actually three years before Atlantis was able to reconnect with Earth via the Daedalus, so they spent a lot more time completely cut off from Earth with no way home. Also, this is AU because it assumes that Jack has not yet left with the doctor even though more time then in season 1 has passed.

Formal Disclaimer: I do not now nor ever have nor will own Torchwood, its characters, or any situations therein. This fanwork is not for profit. However, if Ianto and Jack ever want to use my place as a hotel room they should feel free.

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_**Prologue: A Chance to Reflect**_

"Alright, Gwen, I need that profile report on my desk by tomorrow morning. Owen, has anything turned up on that chemical spill?" Jack paused at the base of the steps.

"Not yet, the lab results still aren't very conclusive." Owen muttered from across the Hub.

"Ok, and Ianto-" without missing a beat a full mug of coffee was handed to him from behind his shoulder. "-you're a God." Jack took a long swig of the coffee. "Have you finished that report on our little trip last week?"

"Just about, sir. It'll be ready within the hour."

"Good. I like a productive day. I'll be chatting with the Prime Minister if anyone needs me." He said in his usual casual, breezy way, before he started back up the steps to his office. He stopped just outside the door and leaned back over the railing. "If I'm not out of there in 10 make up an emergency."

"What should it be this time, Jack? An overflowing loo?" Gwen smiled up from her desk.

"I think that would be the one thing he hasn't tried yet." Ianto smirked "It might work."

"I don't care. We're Torchwood, just make up something with lots of big words!" Jack called over his shoulder before closing the door behind him.

WVVVVVVVVW

Owen was intentionally ignoring the banter between his boss and his other coworkers. This damn computer analysis system was supposed to be the best there was. So why was "best" also synonymous with "most bloody difficult"? There was a time when he would have thrown up his hands the second he hit a roadblock like "which is the default spectroscopy method here?" and would have sought out the tech support: Toshiko, but it had been fourteen bloody awful months of dealing with these damn problems on his own and it hadn't gotten any easier, in fact it was just getting harder all the time. Every few months there was some new program or tool Torchwood had available to them, all under the auspices of making their work easier, even though that was a joke. For the past few weeks Ianto, or occasionally Jack, had taken over the installation and integration of any new technology into the Hub, but as…competent as both of them were at it, they weren't computer specialists by nature, and they had other jobs besides. There were days he seriously considered quitting, as if that were possible, but while he never really meant it he would still never get used to how much…smaller this job felt, how much harder it was to be optimistic, without Tosh's help.

WVVVVVVVVW

Ianto set his mug down on the side of Toshiko's desk. It still was her desk no matter how long he had been using it, and he was firm in referring to it as hers as long as there was no one permanently stationed there. He was merely using it since it was a convenient surface on which to work down here. In this last year he had been given so much more responsibility at Torchwood, something he had once only dreamed of. In addition to the coffee and cleaning and filing he found himself out in the field with Jack, Gwen and Owen more often then not, and even handling some of the foreign objects they confiscated from the rift. Those were the more terrifying tasks, since even with all his past experience and current skill he still didn't feel like he was completely up to the task of safely deciphering alien technology they had no clue how to use. In reality none of them were, there was just so much out there they didn't know and they were really nothing more then kids playing with grown up toys in that regard. Tosh had always made this look so systematic and safe. Ianto had to wonder if she had really been as nervous as he was now. Sure, once he used to dream about being such an important part of the team here, but now, it was as much a nightmare as anything else. There had always been the uncertainty, the "did we do it right?" reflex they all had about their work. These days it seemed that reflex was stronger then ever and the guilt every time he felt he did it wrong ate at him.

Glancing at his watch Ianto noticed that eight minutes, approximately, had passed since Jack had closed himself up in his office to make his call to the Prime Minister. That meant it was time to check his list of long, complicated-sounding technical words (helpfully downloaded from the internet) and make up a new excuse that would rescue Jack from the terrifying voice of politics.

WVVVVVVVVW

Gwen drained the last of her coffee and set the empty mug on her desk as she waited for her email client to load. There would probably be a message from her mum and dad; they had begun to get suspicious about her work ever since she had ended up in the Cardiff General Hospital after being surprised by a weevil they had chased through the city for hours in the middle of a summer afternoon. Now, every week, there was some little note from them waiting in her email, and another on the answering machine in her flat: 'Just wanted to check in, see how you were doing, and are you free to stop by this weekend?' Gwen appreciated their concern but it wasn't helping her any to deal with stress from them on top of her daily working life.

The hardest thing about this job was not being able to just _talk _to anyone about it. Sure, she did still tell Owen more then she would tell anyone else, and Ianto was someone she felt she could trust, even though she would rather not tell him any of the really personal stuff. Even Jack could be a good listener, but there were times she thought he carried enough of a burden around as it was, she shouldn't be adding to it. Even with all three of them, though, there was still the inescapable fact that her only possible confidants were all, well, male. Sometimes she really wished she had another woman to talk to. There were days when Owen, or Jack, or even Ianto would say something so immature and classically male. In the old days when that happened she and Toshiko would glance at each other and roll their eyes. It was harder now that she was the only girl in a group, however small, of men.

God, did she miss Tosh. She had cried for her in the days following her disappearance when they realized they weren't going to find her. They had really no idea what had happened to her, just that there had been that glowing blue energy field, that Tosh had tried to stop Dr. Richmond from diving into it, and instead she had been knocked into it herself before the field died as Jack cut the power supply.

More than a year later and they still had no idea where the rift had taken her, or when. They had searched all historical records and the surrounding areas for any signs of Toshiko in history and had turned up nothing. Jack still said that wasn't a bad sign; he maintained that there was a pretty good chance Tosh was alive somewhere and somewhen. It didn't help that much, though; Gwen still mourned her friend.

WVVVVVVVVW

"Of course, Madam Prime Minister…yup…I'll do that……that's right…absolutely, you're right, but if you'll excuse me I'll have to hang up, I think my staff needs me…" As always the new Prime Minister wouldn't take a subtle hint to let him off the hook. Some days even not-so-subtle ones didn't work. Ianto strolled into the office, and damned if he wasn't taking his time to close the door and straighten his jacket and fold his hands behind his back while Jack held onto his phone with every ounce of patience he possessed. The slight smirk fighting its way onto Ianto's face confirmed it. If Jack had been wondering if Ianto's higher responsibilities and authorities in Torchwood Three lately were giving him ideas above his station this confirmed it. The bastard was _deliberately_ stringing this along! Jack briefly entertained the idea of raising Ianto's station enough to give _him _the responsibility of dealing with the Prime Minister every time they had difference of authority issues. Of course Jack would never actually do that, of everyone in Torchwood Ianto was the last one Jack wanted to have to watch his back for. After what had happened the last time Jack had pissed Ianto off he had since learned his lesson about staying on the Welshman's good side.

"Sir," Ianto finally said, loudly enough to be heard over the line, "Sir, you're needed in the lab. There's a problem with the actuator on the Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor and the matrix is becoming unstable."

"I'm sorry…yes, that's one of my staff…yes, yes, I'm sure we will. Thank you Madame Prime Minister. Good day, to you too. Goodbye." Click.

"Thank you, Ianto." Jack straightened his collar and took another long gulp from his coffee, emptying the mug. "But the next time I say 10 minutes, make it seven."

"Of course, sir." By now Ianto wasn't even attempting to hide his smirk. "Shall I get you another coffee? With a good dose of Bailey's, perhaps?" Jack grinned, thinking that maybe slight insubordination was worth it for the rewards that came later. "That would be nice."

While Ianto left to mix up the coffee Jack sifted through the paperwork on his desk. There was, as always, at least four different kinds of bureaucratic red tape going on that he needed to wrap up. If this was what working outside of the mainstream of British government was he was thoroughly grateful he had never listened when his dad had told him that with his charm he ought to be a politician. Working for the time agency had been far better then that, and even working here, though it had been more of a way to mark time until he found his way back to the doctor and Rose, or to the time agency, was better then any life he could have had back home. He may have taken on this job just to pass time and put himself in a good position to find a way back to his old life, but in the years since then he had honestly come to believe in what he did here, most of the time at least, and he imagined that when the time came he might have second thoughts about leaving this job behind him.

Especially now; things hadn't been the same for his team since Doctor Richmond constructed and activated a rift manipulator of his own fourteen months ago. Losing Tosh had been hard on all of them. In the weeks following her disappearance he had been forced to admit to himself, and convince them as well, that Tosh was well and truly gone. Even if they reopened the rift they would have no way of knowing where or when she had gone. While the realistic part of Jack knew that, likely as not, Tosh was dead by now for one reason or another; he tried his best to ignore that part.

His team was fragile now. Smaller then it had once been and weaker because of it. Work, and life, still continued even though a friend was gone, but the bad luck they'd had in trying to replace Tosh had only weakened the team further. He had been lucky with Gwen, he realized now. His decision to hire her had been off the cuff, even though he already knew she possessed qualities they needed in Torchwood, like dedication and empathy. A lot of things could have gone wrong, pulling her into their world without a chance to observe her in more situations then that one disaster with Suzie, but they got lucky. Apparently that luck hadn't been meant to last. Doing things spontaneously had usually worked out for the best for him, but now he knew that he would have to wait, to be absolutely sure, before he next tried to fill Toshiko Sato's place in Torchwood.

Ianto reappeared in his doorway, crossing the room to set his coffee and the finalized incident report for last week on his desk.

"All set, sir." Ianto said simply. Grabbing a pen from the side of his desk Jack opened the report to the last page to sign off on it. There wasn't time to be reminiscing right now; they still had a job to do, after all.

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Please let me know what you think. Feedback makes the story go your way! 


	2. Chapter 1

Humblest thanks to Arkaidy and Boo26 for their support and suggestions! If you want to read a real kickbutt crossover go read Arkaidy's "Photo Collage" and its sequels (and AsTheBlackRoseWilts' prequel its based off of: "Photographs")! Now that is some seriously imaginative series manipulation!

Wormhole physics jargon supplied by Wikipedia.

Sorry for the short chapter, but its necessary to keep this as a small chunk in order for the next chapter to be of reasonable length.

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Gwen fiddled with her pen in her hands while she waited for the rest of the information on the recent violent crimes victims in and around the Cardiff area to download. As soon as that was finished she had at least three or four hours of reading reports and scanning pictures to do in order to make sure that nothing new and unpleasant had slipped through the rift and gotten lost among the routine crimes her old coworkers handled. It was thorough, and it was also boring as hell. Owen was at his desk leafing through a medical journal and occasionally muttering words that sounded like disease names. Like he was really fooling anyone, she thought, they all knew he hid copies of 'Playboy' in between the covers. Last she's seen Jack he'd been on the phone again and Ianto had only just reappeared from the archives. The whole hub was quiet as a tomb. That had been a common state for it lately, actually. It was for this reason that when the grinding sound of the lift from the reception office starting down began she jumped a little in surprise.

She turned to look at Ianto just as he came forward in the direction of her desk, and the lift. Everyone who should be in the hub currently was, so who could be coming down? They'd just had lunch not two hours before so it couldn't be a pizza delivery or anything, and the alarms hadn't gone off to alert them of any non-recognized personnel entering the small tourist office above, so who…

The sound of the lift cage creaking open began just as Gwen turned the corner, one hand curling up in her pocket: innocuous enough to get by if this was some misunderstanding but close enough to her shoulder holster if someone had actually managed to break into Torchwood intentionally.

The sounds of Jack's door opening, Ianto calling up to him and paper slapping down on a desk along with the squeal of a desk chair's wheels came from behind her but by then Gwen was looking their intruder straight in the face, and suddenly she was too distracted by the person standing in front of the lift to care what was behind her: black pressed dress pants that looked brand new, a deep green collared blouse and a black leather jacket all leading up to a face that made her mind go blank with shock for a moment.

Tosh looked up at her and smiled nervously. She was breathing hard and pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I hope you don't mind." She said as she caught her breath, "I let myself in."

WVVVVVVVW

Tosh stood as still as possible once she was outside the old lift. She knew they were probably going to think they were being invaded and the last thing she wanted was to end up falling to friendly fire after all she'd managed to survive over the past year. Gwen stepped around the corner first, looking as if she was getting ready to grab for her gun, and just stopped at the sight of her. Tosh knew this was going to be one hell of a bombshell to drop, and she was just as nervous now as she had felt even before her plane had left Colorado, only at least now, standing here waiting for a reaction, she could feel that calmness over the nervousness that usually only came from finding herself in a dangerous situation.

Finally Gwen pulled her hands out of her jacket and covered her mouth and nose in that way she always did when she got emotional. Despite the nervousness Tosh grinned. After all this time she really had missed that look.

"Oh….oh my God,…Tosh!?" Gwen dropped her hands and lunged forward, abandoning suspicion and caution completely. While Tosh returned Gwen's fierce hug there were shouts and other voices, definitely the guys, but Tosh wasn't really hearing what they were saying, everything began happening so fast. Gwen's grip was loosened as she was pulled away by Jack who looked Tosh up and down so fast she didn't see how intense and analyzing his expression was. Before she could begin to feel nervous again he swooped her into his arms, hugging her. He was still so much taller then her his chin was pressing on the top of her head, and Tosh briefly wondered why all the men she had hugged in recent history were so much taller then her that they could do that. Then Jack went so far as to dip her and gave her a quick kiss on the lips before releasing her.

'_Dammit if Jack doesn't still love to make a scene._' Tosh thought dizzily as Owen grabbed her next. He did without the dip, but Tosh caught his mutters of '_Bloody damn miracle_' under his breath while he squeezed her. Last was Ianto, of course, and Tosh hugged him a little longer then the others. More then any of them it had been Ianto Tosh had missed the most this past year, for his friendship, of course, but mostly for the reason that the memory of his calm nature and dependability had inspired her during the worst parts of it all.

At some point, and it might have been ten minutes or more later, but Tosh couldn't be sure, she found herself facing them all again and realized her vision was blurred. As she wiped her eyes she saw that Gwen was no better off, Jack was wearing a thousand watt cat-that-ate-the-canary grin and Owen was squinting at the florescent lights above them. Ianto…Ianto had at some point gotten her jacket off of her and was walking toward the coat hanger by the lift; it made Tosh want to laugh to see Ianto still so stereotypically himself after all this time.

"Well, it's…it's really great…to see you all again." Tosh stuttered. It felt a little awkward, standing there facing them instead of standing with them, but she was still too happy to care. There was a pause when no one said anything, then Gwen cleared her throat and jumped in.

"Ianto, why don't you make some coffee, and Tosh can tell us the whole story. I mean, it's been more than a year I'm sure there's tons to tell. Or, has it even been a year for you? Did the rift send you through time, or space,…or both? I mean, you don't look any different."

Gwen babbling, another familiar part of Torchwood she missed.

"No, no, well, just space, but it's a long story. I just got back, actually."

"Well then," Ianto broke in, he was smiling too, Tosh finally noticed, and now she remembered that was another thing she had missed, "I'll get some coffee and you can tell us all about it." He began to move toward the kitchenette in the rear of the hub and Gwen reached out for Tosh's arm, turning toward the direction of the conference room; but Jack stepped aside, blocking their way, while giving a small nod to someone, Owen, actually, over their shoulders and moving to pull Tosh in the other direction.

"Yeah, its got to be a long story. It's just that, you won't mind that we make sure you're really you first, right?" Jack drawled, still smiling, a little less then before, but his eyes had that look they used to get just before he'd turn into the devil's advocate and do something like give a little girl over to a bunch of homicidal fairies.

'_No change there, I should have been expecting that.'_ Tosh thought. Her smile faded as she pushed her no-nonsense-business persona to the fore.

"Not at all, do what you have to do."

WVVVVVVVW

"Make sure you test everything, Owen, the full medical chart." Jack called over the counter to where Owen was programming the test battery into his computer. Tosh was sitting on the examination bed, her new clothes replaced by an examination gown. Jack had his hands braced on the bed, watching her while Gwen stood by with her arms crossed, giving Jack a look.

"I still say you're both being insensitive clods." She told him.

"Hey," Jack returned her look with one of his own but directed his reply to Tosh "Really, Tosh, we're thrilled to see you but we need to make sure it's really you before we break out the champagne." Gwen started to speak up but Tosh interrupted.

"That's fine, I'd like to make sure it's me too." Privately, though, Tosh knew there was nothing Owen was going to find. If nothing unusual came out of the last three full medical exams she had received since arriving in Colorado, to say nothing of the weekly exams before that, then she had nothing to worry about.

Ianto walked quietly up behind Jack, who turned his head only enough to acknowledge the younger man's presence. For his part, Ianto raised his head to catch Tosh's attention, giving her a nod to let her know that her clothes were safely tucked away. Of course Tosh still remembered procedure around the hub, her clothes were neatly tucked away…in a biohazard bag. Oh well, at least with Ianto in charge she knew they wouldn't wrinkle.

"So, Tosh," Gwen began slowly; Tosh could practically see her phrasing out her words, "it's been a long time, where…where have you been exactly?"

Tosh was very aware that all eyes were on her at that question.

"Well…" Tosh realized that at some point her mind had blanked out on all of its usual organization. Damn it! She'd had a perfectly worded explanation ready when she left Colorado, what was it again!?

"Well, um…first of all, we, we think that when Doctor Richmond's rift manipulator activated, the portal wasn't stable enough to actually manipulate the spacetime continuum in the way it was intended to… but it did stabilize long enough when I entered it to form a stable wormhole, just not a temporal one," the familiar explanation she had rehearsed finally unburied itself. She knew it by heart, really, after all this time. She'd been over the physics of it again and again with Radek and Rodney and she found herself repeating the same words Rodney had once said to her over a year ago. "It was a Lorentzian one, and still an actual, semi-stable spatial wormhole. In fact, the wormhole it created must have been drawing an astronomical amount of power from the rift just to stabilize as much as it did, but it wasn't being directed or controlled, since the computers had been damaged," The damaged computers would be Jack's fault, since he had deemed that an likely method to shut down the manipulator after it activated, "and so when it began to destabilize it connected, possibly accidentally, with a nearby exotic matter source that stabilized the flux tube and was actually able to form an event horizon to reconstitute the matter stream-"

"Oh, God here we go again." Owen complained loudly over her. He sounded like his usual crabby self, the one Tosh remembered so well, but Tosh couldn't help but think that Owen used to seem more annoyed by her techno-speak then he sounded now; and then she realized that that was what she was doing: going way over everyone else's head trying to explain concepts that had become second nature to her. It seemed she had gotten used to working so closely with people that thought in the same track she did. Tosh stumbled over her words, trying to figure out how to fix her explanation.

"But, in summary, you mean that portal sent you safely through space to another location?" Ianto stepped forward from behind Gwen and Jack, handing her a cup of tea. Oh, God, real Green tea! Made by Ianto! She thought she really could just kiss him out of gratitude right then.

"Um, actually…well, yes. Maybe not entirely safely, but I did get there alright." Tosh trailed off lamely.

"Why couldn't you have just said so?" Owen asked, peeved, as he made to wrap a blood pressure cuff around her arm. Gwen reached past Tosh's arm to jab Owen in the side and Tosh was suddenly hit with curiosity about whether or not they were still having an affair, but considering that the question wasn't really a pertinent one at the moment she tucked it away for later.

"So where was it?" Jack asked, "Where were you dropped?"

Tosh smiled, affecting a calm, mild attitude. She'd been waiting fourteen months to do to someone what Rodney McKay had done to her when she first arrived in the city. Of course, even if she tried she couldn't match him for smug satisfaction.

"The Pegasus Galaxy." She said simply. "Or, more specifically, the ancient city of Atlantis."

And there it was! She'd known it would happen. Even to the members of Torchwood, who had collectively seen more insane, otherworldly, inhuman circumstances then most other people on the planet. The looks on their faces were no different then she had expected. Gwen's expression, particularly, was comical. Jack, who never seemed too surprised by anything, looked impressed and she couldn't resist turning around to catch Owen's slack-jawed narrow-eyed stare.

'_I work with the most advanced technology known to man and I didn't bring a damn camera!'_ she mused.

Tosh counted the ticking of Owen's watch on the wrist still attached to the arm that was in the middle of wrapping the blood pressure cuff while she waited for a response. Finally, Jack cleared his throat, leaning toward her with his head cocked to one side.

"So, was it nice?"

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Not as much fun as the first chapter, I know, but its coming, I promise!


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